Time's Up
by LostInTheDreams
Summary: Saguru and Conan are thrown into a world they have no control over, and no one is who they seem to be, when one familiar looking white-rabbit-eared girl leads then down the rabbit hole... but not back again. DC/MK Character Crossovers.


This is a challenge fic I wrote to Mysteryfan17  
>I set the characters and genre that fanfiction offers on random and had to come up with a 'fantasy' story<br>(a first for me)

*evil laugh* AND THIS IS WHAT WAS BORN!

*P.S. I did it to help me want to write, but I also did it to distract her while I got on an airplane and flew to her house to meet her in person for the first time (planned behind her back with the help of her mother and sister)  
>I'm here even as I post this XD<p>

Hope you like the story. No copyright infringment was intended and all ideas for the original storyline belong to Disney, it's affiliates, and anyone else who has rights to it- which I claim none :D  
>Characterization is based off of the Alice In Wonderland movie and not the book<p>

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><p><strong>Hakuba Saguru and Edogawa Conan In:<strong>

_**TIME'S UP**_

_Okay_. Saguru took in a deep breath, the scent of lilac and other types of fragrant flowers filling his senses, though he couldn't identify them individually. That was of little importance at the moment, though. Two things had to be addressed first, and then maybe he would allow any remaining brainpower to work out the medial task of sorting through long-forgotten names.

First, the child at his side. Something had to be done about that, since the boy looked ready to run at any provocation. Not that Saguru could fault him for that. His own body told him that he was also ready to bolt at any further discrepancies.

That was the second thing he needed to figure out how to deal with. Said discrepancy was currently sitting not five feet in front of the pair, and playing around with a watch that looked very much like his own.

Ignoring the oddities of the... person in front of him, Saguru checked his pockets to find that, indeed, his watch was missing.

"Little girl?" Saguru asked in a hesitant tone, watching said girl lift her head from where she was studying his watch, white rabbit ears tilting to the side in a way that would have been cute if it weren't for the fact that they looked like they were actual rabbit ears emerging from layers of strawberry-blond hair. "Can I have my watch back?"

"No," was the simple response he received. "I'm very late. I don't have time to return it to you."

And then the girl got up and started walking off through a patch of long grass, which currently separated the house he'd been sent to investigate from an adjacent forest.

"Wait!" Saguru couldn't just let... whatever this girl was get away with his watch. It was far too important for him to leave in the hands of a child... if that's what she was. She must have been, he thought There were no such things at people with rabbit ears or tails. He pretended he didn't notice the white fluff coming out of a hole in the back of her pants.

He pursued her through the thicket, hearing the young boy who had just helped him solve the case run at his heels. They both stopped when they came to a large opening in the forest where the trees seemed to part and bend inwards, more like a cave of branches than any normal growth.

The boy was at his side, staring into the opening with him.

"Nii-chan? You saw that too?" The boy looked up at him, his glasses momentarily flashing with a glare from the sun.

"Yeah," Saguru replied hesitantly, looking down at Conan. "That girl? She was real, right? We both saw her?"

Conan nodded, staring back into the trees. "But she's not supposed to be here..."

"You know her?"

Conan looked back up at him, clearly confused but nodding.

"Well…" Saguru stared into the forest, where the very light seemed to be cut off from entering. "We both have something we need to go get, then." Looking down at the boy, he smiled, trying to ignore his unease. "After you."

For the first time since he'd met him, the younger boy seemed hesitant. "Something's not right."

"I couldn't agree with you more. We should both do the logical thing and turn around then."

After that, it was only a few seconds before the younger one smiled. Saguru was getting to know the boy well. He wasn't one to resist a mystery.

They both walked into the forest, to a place that even time had forgotten;where flowers long since lost to mankind flourished, and things beyond your wildest dreams had a way of coming into reality..a place both of them would quickly regret entering as the very notion of the world they knew was thrown upside down.

...

...

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><p>...<p>

...

"Ouch!"

It was not his most articulate sentence, but one without replacement as his head hurt and no further words came to him. "What happened?"

Saguru looked around, trying to peer through the darkness that seemed to have a tint of red to it. Conan was next to him, and that small fact seemed to calm him down. "Where are we?"

"I don't know." The younger boy shook his head, his glasses missing. Saguru figured they must have fallen off. "All I remember is that we fell."

That he remembered - they had fallen. One of the over-large tree roots had tripped him up, and he had vague memories of the boy reaching for him before everything went dark.

"All right, then. Let's find out where we are." Saguru got to his feet, searching the darkness. "This would be a lot easier if we had some light."

A small click and a bright beam blinded him for a moment before Conan turned the light away. The light seemed to be coming from the clock face on the boy's watch. "Sorry about that," Conan apologized.

"It's not a big deal." Saguru rubbed his eyes, trying to get the burn marks to fade from his vision. "At least one of us came prepared."

"My, isn't that annoying."

The voice caught his attention and both boys turned to the small girl with the rabbit ears, still intent on something interesting she saw on the hands of his pocket watch. "You know, I could see better without the blinding light. Anyway, like I said, I'm late. I'll have to deal with you later."

The girl walked off into the shadows, Conan's light trained on her as they both gave chase. A mysterious door, which was about the size of one made for some type of small dog—though this was very humanly crafted—appeared in their line of sight as the girl entered it and swiftly shut it behind her.

Conan came to the door first. Saguru watched the young boy struggle with the handle for a minute before giving up with a sigh. "It's locked."

"So we need a key now. . . You know," Saguru said, raising an eyebrow, "even if we found one, you're the only one of us who could get through."

"Yeeessssssssss..." Something hissed behind them and they turned to find a Snake, golden eyes reflecting the light beam as it was turned on the creature. There was something about it that was unlike any snake that Saguru had ever seen. It could have been the fact that albinos of the species were rare, but there was a quality to its inhuman yellow eyes that spoke of something far more sinister. That,and the fact that the snake was wearing a black hat reminiscent of the mafia. "A key would do neittttthhhhheeeer of you any good."

"I must have hit my head harder than I realized." Saguru ran a hand through his hair, searching for any bumps he may have received in the fall. "That, or it's now common for serpents to speak. We must have died and wound up in the Garden of Eden."

The boy seemed more afraid of the snake than Saguru was. But then again, he was a child, and it wasn't too out of place to have a fear of snakes, whether they were normal or... whatever type of hallucination they were currently being presented with.

"You heard that too, did you not, Conan-kun?"

Conan nodded, taking a few steps back so that he was now in front of the boy. "What's going on?"

"I have no idea."

"Keysssss for lockssssss that don't have doorsssss, won't do you any good." The snake slithered closer, almost dancing as it moved. Saguru was confused by that logic though. What was the thing talking about? The door was right...

The door _was_ right there. In its place, only the hole for the lock remained.

"Okay, how is that possible?" He bent down and ran his hand across the wall to make sure that the door was indeed gone and that his eyes weren't playing some kind of trick on him. "I must be dreaming," he told himself. Then Conan kicked him very hard in the shin. "OUCH!"

"Did you wake up? Because I haven't yet." The small boy looked around. "I can only think that someone is playing some type of prank on us. One that's gone a little too far."

"And how do you explain that?" Saguru pointed to the snake, his own logic failing to come up with some reasonable answer as to how a reptile would suddenly develop vocal cords and the intelligence in which to use them.

They both stared at the snake, which in turn stared at them as if it were smiling- another thing that Saguru had thought was impossible.

"Care to assssssssk for my assssistancccccce?"

"Dreaming or not, I'm not going to barter with a talking reptile. Seeing as I have nothing of which to offer, I'm even less inclined," Saguru shrugged.

"What do you want?" the younger boy jumped in, ignoring him completely. "I'm sure you want something to trade, and you know we don't have anything."

"Oh...your watch there will do. I ssssssso detessssssst light."

Conan grabbed onto his watch with his other hand as if the snake could take the article from him. "No way."

"Then have fun in limbo." On the snake's final words, the creature seemed to grin further, slithering off to some point in the darkness that neither boy could see into.

"Well." Saguru sat down on the floor next to Conan. "What do we do now?"

"I don't know." The boy's shoulders sagged, now that he wasn't braced for an attack. "I don't understand what's going on."

"If it's a game... why don't we play along?"

They both stared at one another, Saguru seeing more in the young boy's eyes than he had ever seen before. Conan was scared. They both knew it, though neither of them wanted to say it aloud. This was no game.

"Fine." Conan unclipped his watch, throwing it in the direction the snake had disappeared. The light seemed to bounce off only the shadows, as if they weren't in a room at all. "Here!" he shouted louder. "You can have the watch! Now help us get through!"

"Ttttttttthank you." The snake appeared as if summoned, opening his mouth to reveal long fangs before swallowing the watch and plunging them into shadows that their eyes had to readjust too.

"Now, for ttttttthe way through." The snake brought up its tail, entwined around a small black box. "Ttttthhhhiiissssss is what you need."

Then the snake vanished once again.

Conan went to get the box from where it had been deposited, opening it up and looking intently at the contents.

"What is it?"

Conan gave him no answer, placing one hand in the box and keeping whatever they had won in their bargain to himself.

"We'll be here for the rest of our lives if you don't show it to me."

Conan turned at that, his blue eyes not hidden behind the glasses he normally wore. Without them, he almost looked _more_ intelligent than usual. Conan took something out of the box before handing it to him. "Here."

Inside was a small pill, half of it red, and half of it white.

"What are we supposed to do? Take it?"

"I think so." But Conan's eyes were worried as he eyed the pill in his own hand. "But I don't know what it will do. This looks like..."

Saguru sighed, watching the shadows around him. What could happen? If he was dreaming, what he did here would make no difference in the real world, but if he wasn't... time wasn't something he liked to waste, and he was anxious to get out of the dark place they were in now. There was something about the shadows that scared him more than the serpent had.

"I'll take my chances. I just wish I had a glass of water."

And, just like that, one appeared before him on the ground not more than a foot away.

"Well, now." Saguru raised an eyebrow. "That's new. I wish I had a million dollars to go with it."

A million dollars didn't appear.

Conan looked at him with a smile, the first he'd seen from the boy since this all started. Saguru smiled back, picking up the glass. "Hey, it was worth a shot."

He swallowed the pill, handing the glass over to Conan. The boy took his as well. Whatever happened now, at least they'd be sharing the same fate.

Something hurt. He couldn't say what it was, but the pain spread through his body almost like it was running through his veins. Even moving his hand to close it hurt like hell. The pain was so potent, he was sure he could actually hear whatever torment was running through his body like a drum in his ears. If he screamed, he wasn't aware of it. He was sure that time had passed but, for once, he couldn't keep track of it.

Suddenly everything was normal and he found himself lying on the ground. _What just happened?_

Saguru picked himself off the floor for the second time in as many minutes, making sure his head was still where it should be. He found his eyes searching for Conan as if the world would end if the young boy wasn't by his side.

Conan got up off the floor as well. Looking at him, nothing seemed like it had changed - that is… if he hadn't looked up and seen the large keyhole that was now nearly fifty times as big as it once was.

"That's interesting. It looks like the room grew."

"No." Conan looked around, renewed fear in his eyes. "I don't think the room got bigger. I think we got smaller."

Well, that was interesting... and also something to be feared, especially if that snake came back now...

"I suggest, then, that we get on our way."

Conan nodded, looking up at the keyhole. "But how are we supposed to get up there?"

That was a good question. Conan moved close enough to the wall to touch it, searching the surface for any type of groove. "It worked for you, so let's see if it will work again. 'This would be so much easier if we had a way to get up there,'" he added to no one.

Saguru laughed for a moment before noticing small protrusions coming from the wall, almost like a ladder, that he was positive hadn't been there before.

"If this isn't a dream," he said to both Conan and himself, "reality sure has taken a turn for the worse."

Climbing up was much more difficult than he thought it would be. The keyhole had not gotten any closer to the ground than it had been before, and they were so small now that it took enormous effort to climb all the rungs on the wall.

Saguru breathed a heavy sigh when he finally reached the top, and he and Conan both had to sit for a moment to catch their breath.

"This doesn't look... like it will... end very easily."

"No." Conan shook his head, eyeing the inside of the lock. "And it's making... less and less sense."

Saguru looked as well, noticing that there were no chambers to the lock, only smooth surface. "And you were sure you couldn't get the door to open?"

Conan nodded.

"Alright, then." Saguru got to his feet, trying to get his energy back. "What do we do now? Should we keep going or stay where we are until the world decides to get itself back in order again?"

"We keep going. Staying here won't do us any good." Conan got up, making his way to whatever lay on the other side of the keyhole. Saguru was reluctant to follow, but he couldn't let the boy leave on his own, so he soon found his footsteps following Conan's.

He didn't like what he saw on the other side.

"I do believe that is the sea," Saguru said

"With how small we are, it could be a puddle." Conan raised his eyebrows at him, finding amusement in the situation.

Saguru laughed. The boy was right, after all. For all they knew, it could be someone's glass of water, seeing as he couldn't see anything but blue as far as he looked. "So what do we do now?"

"I have no-"

A strong gust of wind came up suddenly, sweeping through from the other side of the keyhole so that Saguru had to brace himself or be thrown over. Conan wasn't so lucky. He didn't have time to grab the smaller boy before he was whisked off into the waters below, something dark flying overhead.

"Conan-kun!"

He didn't even think about it before he jumped in after the boy, not caring that there was no way to get back to the safety of the keyhole once he did. He didn't think that far ahead. It wasn't that he didn't care—he simply didn't have _time_ to care.

Once in the water, the surface breaking every few seconds with waves, pushing him towards a very solid looking wall that the keyhole came out of, he looked for the boy. The water was very cold, pulling his clothes under, and had no taste. Conan wasn't easy to find, the waves forcing his dark hair under the water every few seconds.

"Here," Saguru swam over towards him, trying to help the boy stay above the surface and only managing to make himself swallow more water.

Conan shook his head. It was useless. Neither of them knew where the shore was and their only safety was at least twenty feet above them.

The gales of wind came back, forcing him to swim harder to stay above the surface.

"You'll never get dry, playing in the water like that."

The voice was male but far deeper and louder than Saguru had ever heard. He looked up, trying to hold onto Conan and keep himself afloat at the same time. He almost stopped trying when he saw what was hovering above them.

"Watson?"

It certainly looked like his bird, though he'd grown nearly six times his size.

"What-son? I am no father. If you keep playing around like that, you won't make it to the springtime. And how I loved when the flowers sing."

Saguru was confused, trying to make sense of the sentence.

"Though I have no hands to give, I may allow you to hold on. After all, what is springtime without little snakes to eat my eggs?"

"Ah..." Saguru looked up, seeing that the coloration was idea the same as Watson's. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

One of the bird's clawed feet grew close enough to the water that he was able to grab on, lifting Conan up so the boy would be safe. Watson took off the second he got Conan up, the bird's wings nearly brushing the water in order to get close enough. Saguru wasn't able to do more than hang on for dear life. He felt Conan's small hand grab onto his sleeve and gave whatever comfort he could.

It wasn't long before he spotted land, consisting of a small beach and a forest.

"At least it's not dark here," he heard Conan shout over the noise of the flapping wings.

"Dark?" Watson laughed, something that should have been impossible. "You must have missed the light switch on the way down. Here we are now. Off you little insects, I have to catch the sun before it escapes again. Spring has sprung!"

Watson got as close to the ground as the large bird's wings would let it. Saguru knew when he wasn't welcome, trying to grab onto Conan before they fell. With one large brush of feathers, they were dislodged, Saguru managing to grab the small child before any harm could come to him. The sand wasn't as soft as he hoped and he felt the air rush out of him when they landed.

"You alright?" Conan asked with concern, grabbing at his shirt.

"I'm fine." He got up, stretching and trying to shake off the sand that was now sticking to his wet shirt. He looked up towards Watson's retreating form that now looked like a spec in the sky. "What was that?"

"I don't know. I don't know what any of this is." Conan sighed. "You have to stop asking me that."

"Sorry," Saguru tipped his head at the boy. He didn't know why he expected Conan to understand the situation any more than he did. He looked towards the forest, this one not as intimidating as the one they had first entered. "I guess we go that way now."

"Seems that way." Conan started walking off the beach, waiting for Saguru every time his steps took them too far apart. Being separated, wherever they were, wasn't a very becoming idea to either of them.

"Hey!" Saguru pointed a finger towards a glint of white that had caught his attention. That color was now something he found himself unconsciously looking for, what with having to spot Kid, most of the times at a distance.

The girl with the rabbit ears turned at the noise, sprinting off further into the forest. He took off after her as fast as he could, keeping himself aware at all times as to where Conan was. It didn't take him long to realize that the girl was faster than she looked and already well gone.

"Well..." Saguru said, panting. "She's somewhere around here."

"I'm not a she, I'm a he!" said a much higher male voice than his own. He turned and saw a boy with dark hair and freckles. He thought this might be the closest thing to normal he'd seen yet, except for the boy's odd attire. His shirt was a bright yellow with an overly large white collar, completed by a blue bow twice the size of Conan's and bright red pants. Ignoring all that, it was hard to miss the red cap with the little green flag sticking out of the top like the boy was some type of odd wind-up doll.

"And we're not somewhere, we're right here!" Another boy, this one much fatter, though wearing the same clothes, came out of nowhere. Both boys raised a finger in exclamation. "And that is very rude way to introduce yourselves!" they said in unison, holding out their hands for both him and Conan to shake.

Saguru reached out his hand tentatively, afraid of what might be hidden under such innocent looking faces.

"Genta?" Conan asked, shaking the larger boy's hand. "Mitsuhiko?" when he shook the skinnier boy's hand.

Both boys looked at each other, shrugged at one another, and turned back to them with big smiles. "Now that we've met, let's play a game!"

"Oh!" The skinnier boy jumped up and down. "I want to play Pirates!"

"No!" The other ones said. "Let's play Lunch!"

"That's not a game!" The first one complained.

Saguru didn't want to get between them, but he wasn't about to play some childish game to amuse them either. He started walking slowly away, watching Conan follow him. Apparently, they were too obvious in their escape, as the freckled boy made an exited noise and ran after them.

"You can't leave yet!"

"We really... have to find someone." Saguru put his hands up, hoping his day wouldn't get any stranger and the boy would suddenly turn into a dragon and eat him, or some such nonsense.

"Oh, I hope it wasn't old Betty," the large boy said sadly.

"Yes," the other boy agreed. "I hope it wasn't. Poor old woman died so tragically, and no one ever found out how."

Conan leaned forward, interested. Saguru had enough of all of this already, grabbing the boy and walking off while the other two strangely dressed ones contained their tale, not at all concerned about their absence.

"But I wanted to hear that story..." Conan complained when he finally put the boy down.

"The the way things around here are, Betty could be a bug who died when she was squished." Just as he finished saying that, both boys turned at a noise near the shore, watching as a short man chased a walrus, dressed up in suit and looking very much like a Tokyo Inspector that Saguru had seen on one other occasion. They watched until both disappeared on the horizon.

"I guess you're right."

They continued on through the forest, coming to a house that looked like it had a female occupant. He turned to Conan, debating whether or not to try their luck with the house or keep on walking and hoping something, somewhere, started making sense.

"I'm hungry," Conan spoke up to him, the same worry in the child's eyes as to what they would find. Saguru had to admit, he was hungry as well. Any food they found though, he didn't think would be safe to eat. Then again, even creatures that made no sense had to find their nutrition somewhere.

"Fine." Saguru took the gate, a heart cut out of it and colored pink, and opened it, hoping to be in and out. Conan followed him, shutting the gate behind him.

The inside of the house looked normal enough. Saguru went to the kitchen, looking to see if there was anything to eat. He fought back on the feeling that they were essentially stealing from the owner, but who would miss just a little bit of food?

He didn't find any in any case. All the cabinets were empty of anything edible, though he did find some pots and pans and other cooking utilities.

"Funny," he mumbled to himself. A jar on the table caught Conan's attention and he watched the boy open it, finding cookies inside. Alarm bells started going off in his head when he noticed all of them were iced with version of "eat me" and "try me".

"Do you think it's safe?" Conan looked up at him. He was the older one after all. It was his duty to keep Conan safe. And he was so hungry himself...

"I honestly don't know, but it's worth trying. What's the worst it could do? Kill us?" Saguru took one of the cookies, his own saying "Take One". Conan took one that had some type of pattern on it. Both boys looked at each other before taking a bite.

The door opened a second later and Saguru dropped his cookie, Conan lowered his, looking guilty. Both their expression changed the minute they realized who walked in.

"Hey," Saguru said, again very inarticulately, at the girl with the rabbit ears. She looked at them with a bored expression before walking right back out the way she came. Saguru gave chase, feeling as each of his footsteps took him longer and longer to get to the door, coming to a stop at the frame and waiting for Conan.

"We've shrunk again," he murmured to the little boy that was much tinier now than he should have been.

"Yeah, I noticed." Conan looked at him, almost angry. "I guess we should keep following her. Out of all the people, at least Haibara knows how to get us back where we first were. Maybe we can get out of this crazy world then."

Saguru nodded, jumping down the very large front step and turning to help Conan down. What else could they do, really, but move forward. The small boy felt very light in his arms and he had to wonder what kind of guardian he was really being to the child. Conan had taken charge just as much as he had, and he'd almost let the boy drown early on. If Watson, from whatever reality they were currently in, hadn't come along, he wasn't sure what would have happened to them.

"Come on." Conan took off with all the certainty of the child that he was that he wouldn't be harmed. Saguru smiled after the boy, feeling a draft of wind blow his bangs into his face. Unlike Conan, his blond hair stood out in the dark grass, while the boy would be able to blend in. Conan turned back to him when he noticed he wasn't being followed. "Hakuba-niichan? Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong." _besides the obvious._ Sighing, he followed the boy into the grass, hoping he wouldn't draw the eyes of any preditors.

The grass was so long as they continued that he stopped worrying about that. Soon it was towering over both of them so much that he was sure it was the height of a ten-story building.

They passed some flowers, most of them even taller than the grass. He heard a few whispers, but Conan kept on walking, so Saguru followed. After he passed a white-fluff-of-a-flower, he was sure the thing had growled at him, so he picked up the pace even more so.

Then they both heard singing... bad singing. Both boys turned to each other, recognizing the voice. Conan smiled and Saguru smiled back. What more could happen?

As they parted another of the very large leaves blocking their path, both boys spotted something that should have been a caterpillar, expect for the fact that this one had black hair and a mustache and looked very much like detective Mouri. Colorful smoke seemed to be coming from the air around the man-pillar. Saguru drew in closer, unafraid of someone so harmless looking. When he got in close, he noticed that Mouri was smoking a cigarette, and each time he blew out air, it would take the shape of a woman, dancing to the song that he was singing.

When Mouri spotted them, he stopped singing and his eyes narrowed.

"Who are you?"

It almost seemed to Saguru that the man was looking more at Conan than he was him. Conan's own eyes locked into Mouri's narrow ones as they started each other down.

"Edogawa Conan."

"Really? Do I look like I care?" Then Mouri went back to smoking his cigarette, a woman made out of purple smoke dancing to a hummed rhythm Mouri took back up once the cigarette was out of his mouth.

The man's caterpillar body moved back and forth to the tune, though his eyes returned to Conan after a few seconds.

"What do you want? Go away!"

"Tell us how to get back to normal and we will." Conan folded his hands in front of himself.

"And who are you?" Mouri's eyes narrowed more as he blew orange smoke at the little guy, making him cough.

"Enough of that." Saguru stood in front of him, Mouri lifting the front part of his body so that they were face to face with one another.

"And who are you?"

"Hakuba Saguru."

Mouri took another drag, breathing into his face when he spoke. "And why should I care Who- You- Are?"

Saguru coughed, brushing away the green smoke. "I didn't..." He coughed again, making sure that he could speak. "I didn't ask you to care. Conan-kun asked you a question. Now kindly answer it."

He wasn't used to speaking back to those older than him, but Mouri currently being half insect helped.

"Why," he blew more smoke at him, this time Saguru had time to hold his breath "should I answer him?"

"Stop answering questions with questions!" He finally shouted

"Stop telling me what to do!" Mouri shouted back, using his caterpillar body to force himself into Saguru's face. Conan was still in back of him but he wasn't able to move the boy before he fell over, hitting his head on some plant behind him.

"There now!" Mouri sat back, blowing out red smoke until it all but engulfed him. When it cleared, the caterpillar-man was nowhere to be seen. Saguru looked above him and saw a butterfly, carrying Mouri's face. "You should start seeing what's right in front of your nose!" And then he was gone.

"What was that all about?" Saguru moved, looking next to him where Conan had fallen to get out of the way. "Sorry, did I hurt you?"

"I'm fine." This time there was no smile. Conan looked after the butterfly as if the stupid thing had just told him something really important.

"And how did that help?" Saguru got to his feet, steadying himself and the mushroom he had fallen into. When he removed his hand, he looked at the fungus some more, thinking on those words. "You don't think..."

Conan's blue eyes found his, looking towards the mushroom. "I don't know." He took a piece of it that was closest to him, and Saguru took one from his side. "But it's worth a try."

Conan took a bite first, disappearing. Saguru kept looking at where the boy had been before he saw something close to the ground catch his eye. He put his hand down and watched a miniature version of Conan climb into it.

"Wrong side you morons!" The butterfly-Mouri came back to shout before flying back off. Saguru raised an eyebrow and looked back at the mushroom, then at the piece in his hand.

"Try this one"

He watched as the small Conan took a bite, growing so quickly that he barely had time to snatch his hand away before Conan was well over a hundred feet tall.

"Well," Saguru smiled up at him. "At least we're getting warmer. You're the right size, now how about me?" While Conan was close to his right height, Saguru was still no bigger than the mushroom. He took the smallest bite he could from the piece that was still in his hand, growing to a few feet more than the boy.

"Good," he said, pocketing the pieces of the mushroom he had taken. "Now, let's see about finding a certain rabbit-eared girl."

Things were bringing to faze him less and less. Sometimes you just had to roll with the punches and Conan seemed to be taking everything all right. He was starting to believe that, even if things didn't work out the way he wanted them too, all wouldn't be lost.

Both of them started back through the same forest they'd been traveling down since they hit the shore line. Whatever further creatures they were going to encounter, Saguru was ready for them.

They came to several forks in the road, all the trees a different color. There were dozens of signs nailed to each one, directions put up by someone who had downed a few too many bottles.

"So," Conan turned to him, looking down each path. "Which way?"

"I don't-"

There was someone singing again, this time the person was perfectly in tune, the words almost dancing off the branches. And this time, Saguru was all too familiar with the voice.

Before his eyes, he watched as too white teeth came out of the shadows under one of the branches, the voice still echoing as if it was coming from every direction.

"You lost?" The grin asked. Soon, a pair of golden eyes faded into view. The singing never stopped until he saw his classmate's face, all happy and knowing, hanging upside down from one of the trees. That... was actually pretty normal. What wasn't normal was that Kuroba had suddenly developed a fetish for cats and had two pointed, fuchsia ears sticking out of the bird's-nest he called his hair. He also seemed to have grown a violet and pink tail while he was at it, currently flicking it around behind him.

"Kuroba-kun?" Saguru blinked at him a few times. Kuroba looked like himself, minus the cat paraphernalia, though he'd never seen him wear the purple shirt nor the pink jeans he now had on.

"Maybe." His classmate's twin grinned at him. "And maybe not. Who's to say really? I could be me, and I could not be me. You could be you, and then again, you could be someone else. What is a name, really, but a label for something we already know. If I don't know you, then I really don't need to know your name."

Kuroba stared at them with bored cat eyes. "Now that we've defined that any introductions would be meaningless, I'll be on my way. It's been nice meeting you." Kuroba started singing again, some tune that he could not pick out the words to, the teen's body disappearing the way he had arrived, the sweep of his tail making it look like some sort of magic trick.

"Wait!" It may not be the real Kuroba but it was it was closest thing he'd seen to someone he knew. He'd take anything at the moment for a better sense of reality.

"If you insist." Kuroba's body came back into view as his tail traced over where it had been. "What is it you want, anyway?"

"You know him?" Conan asked. This was the first time that it seemed they were meeting someone that the younger boy hadn't met at some point.

"I knew him." Saguru folded his arms and looked at Kuroba's feline counterpart. "That's not him."

Conan nodded, turning back to Kuroba where the teen was still hanging upside-down, watching them with that stupid grin of his. "How do we get back home?"

"Where is _home_? You have to be more specific than that. After all, it's not as if your home is my home. And my home is not your home. If that were the case, I couldn't tell you where home is. Because home is nowhere. That is, if you were me. But you are not me. So it really doesn't matter now, does it?" Kuroba laughed at them, his ears twitching.

"You know," Saguru said, watching Kuroba. "You're almost as bad as the real one, and that's saying something."

"And do you want to know something? She went that way," Kuroba said, pointing to some direction behind him.

"Who?" Conan asked.

"The girl with the rabbit ears," Kuroba took his hands, that Saguru now noticed were stripped where the t-shirt ended, and put them over his own ears so they formed rabbit ears.

"You know we're looking for her?" Saguru asked.

"Looking for whom?" Kuroba somehow bent all the way around until his front hand came to where his feet her hanging, letting his feet fall and crawling very cat-like onto the branch.

"The girl with the ears," Conan continued.

"What girl?" Kuroba jumped down, disappearing in the air before he hit the ground and leaving ghostly steps - half some mixed of a human hand and a cat paw, the other tennis shoe imprints - on the floor before he reappeared in another tree.

"Really," Saguru added. "I take that back. You _are _worse than the original. And that's _really_ saying something."

"I wouldn't be so mean if I were you," Kuroba's golden cat eyes narrowed, his grin still there. For once, Saguru was scared of something they were facing down. Out of all the creatures they met, Kuroba seemed the most intelligent, and the most deadly...

"You know though," his eyes lightened up and soon he returned to the same laid-back personality he associated with the real one. "If I were looking for a girl with rabbit ears, I'd go ask some friends of mine. They live," Kuroba-cat took a finger and pointed the opposite direction he had last time. "Over there. But beware, you'll find they're awfully mad this time of year. Well..." Kuroba laughed, jumping down to a lower branch on four feet. "Every day of the year, really."

"Mad?" Conan asked in confusion.

"Not angry. Definition number two. They're rather nuts, you see." Then Kuroba went into peals of laughter that had his hair standing on end. "Then again. We're all mad. Even me..." And his yellow eyes glowed, his grin focused on them as his body slowly disappeared, his staring eyes and laughter the last to leave.

"That was... eerie." Conan spoke up.

Saguru spoke up once he was sure Kuroba was gone. "I honestly don't think I want to run into him again."

Conan nodded, starting to walk in the direction Kuroba had pointed in before he vanished.

"We're still following him?"

"What else can we do?" Conan's eyes looked back at him, open to another option. But he had none, so he followed the boy, once more noticing that he was letting Conan take the lead.

The road was pink and it twisted and turned through the forest where it led to a house with a thatched roof that seemed to be defying several laws of gravity. More singing could be heard, but it was so distant that he couldn't pick out words or voices.

The white fence and hedges further blocked the property from view. Saguru made sure he went ahead of Conan this time, because here they wouldn't be able to see what was coming before it was on them.

There were strange whistling noises when they entered, Saguru making sure Conan was always behind him, though the boy tried several times to overtake him... That was funny. There seemed to be a large dining table in the middle of the lawn, smoke billowing out from it in white plumes.

Saguru used the smoke to sneak closer, hiding behind one of the large chairs at one end of the table. Conan was next to him, trying to peek over the high table.

The singing... he was sure that one of the voices was familiar. The other held a strange tone of dialect that he'd heard before but couldn't place. Both were serenading together as if they'd practiced for years. When he looked closely at the table, he noticed dozens upon dozens of kettles, all whistling to the tune of the song, creating the smoke.

"YOU!" Saguru shouted without thinking the minute he identified one of the people at the other end of the table, pointing at him accusingly. The noise stopped and the other two occupants were suddenly running at them before Saguru had time to do more than lower his hand and take a step back...

"What do you think you're doing here?"

He found himself face to face with Kaitou Kid, the thief uncharacteristically not smiling and looking down at him as if he were just insulted. "How rude to just come to someone's party without being invited!"

"Very rude. Ya should leave before ya ruin the whole day!" Saguru sucked in a breath as he turned to find a very angry Osakan on his other side. Kid should have been the one he was more surprised to see... but Hattori took the prize for that, what with him having somehow grown the same rabbit ears the girl had, though Hattori's were brown, and had he not been wearing a very red, flared collared-shirt with a giant, red bow tie.

"Um, I'm sorry?"

"Well..." Kid placed his hand on the table, accidently putting it in one of the open kettles. "OUCH!" The thief shook it off, holding his hand close to himself. "Why you!" He motioned threatening at the down pot before turning to Hattori. Saguru's eyebrows rose as the kettle seemed to shrink under the threat as if it were alive. Kid shook his head, turning to the Osakan, "they did say they were sorry."

"Yeah, and an apology ain't anythin' ta forget, so might as well forgive." The person/creature that resembled Hattori sat down in one of the chairs, his ears falling forward as he took the kettle Kid had knocked over, and started pouring something dark brown out of it, even though it had been empty after Kid spilled the contents everywhere.

"Right! Now that that's settled, you really must have some hot chocolate!" The thief held a cup out to him as if to toast him, then drank it himself

"I don't think I want any..." Saguru backed away from them both. Kid was hard enough to deal with, Hattori was even worst. Both of them together seemed like one big nightmare.

"Ah!" There was an arm around his shoulder. "But ya gotta have some hot chocolate! An' what's a party without guests?"

"We really didn't mean to interrupt you're party, but we have to go." Conan started to back away but Kid went and picked him up, plopping the boy into one of the dozens of chairs around the table. "To leave our unbirthday party! How very rude!"

"Very rude indeed!" Hattori agreed from next to his ear. Saguru flinched, trying to draw himself away. "How would' ya feel if I walked away from yer unbirthday party?"

"My... what?" His eyebrows rose and he found himself wishing he'd just stayed quiet with the way Kid and Hattori were not looking at him.

Kid started to laugh. "You can't be serious?"

Hattori joined in and Saguru found the opportunity to detach himself. The Osakan grabbed his arm and forced him into the seat next to Conan where they both sat meekly under the eyes of their hosts.

"It's very simple. What kind of idiot doesn't know what an unbirthday is?"

"Right, right!" Hattori chimed in. "Ya know when yer birthday is? Well yer unbirthday is the day yer birthday isn't! Ya see! What fun would it be ta only have one birthday?"

"When you can have hundreds of unbirthdays instead!" Kid threw his hands up into the air and sat next to Conan, grinning now. "When is your birthday?"

"May..." Conan answered hesitantly.

Hattori was looking at him and Saguru hated saying it, but lying to the boy would only make things worse. "... a little less than a week from now..."

Kid and Hattori both grinned at each other, something that looked so right on both their faces and something that told Saguru he'd rather be anywhere but in-between them.

Then they started singing and wasn't that all the worse.

Saguru tried to pretend he couldn't see them. Kid may have looked like the same one that he knew back home, but where they were now, it was pretty obvious that, even if he did the same things, it would be more normal than what half the other occupants of this world were doing. And that thought was very depressing.

"So?" Hattori had finally stopped the little number they had started, watching him between the large ears. "What did'cha come here fer anyway?"

"That's right. You must have had a reason for coming, or else, why would you be here?" Kid sat part of the way on the table, reaching over to get sugar before dumping the whole thing over his teacup, only a few bites to fall out. When he put it back down again, Saguru noticed that there was still a lot of sugar in the jar and marveled at how Kid had done that.

"We're looking for a girl. She has white rabbit ears." Conan put his hands above his head, the way Kuroba had done just recently, and blushed before putting them back down.

"A rabbit-girl huh?" Hattori grabbed on his ears. "Like this?"

Conan nodded to Hattori but both the boy and he were staring at Kid as he somehow managed to lie down across the table without knocking over any of the dishes. "It's so sad when you can't find someone you're looking for."

"Very sad." Hattori agreed.

"Kid," Saguru sighed, "would you-"

But he didn't have time to finish his sentence before something ran across the table in front of him

"Kid!" The creature shouted in a very high tone. It was zigzagging through the cups and plates that he barely had time to tell that it was some rodent-like animal. Kid jumped off the table to avoid it, pouncing on one of the high-backed chairs and somehow not making it fall over.

"Catch 'im!" Hattori dove on the table, trying to catch the brown thing darting back and forth. On instinct, Saguru grabbed it as it ran across the table. Conan had more sense about him than he did, taking one of the jars and slamming it over the animal before it could keep up its spastic running.

"Here!" Hattori took the top of the jar and lifted it, pouring coco all over the little creature. It seemed to calm him down and, on closer inspection, Saguru could see the same green suit the Inspector wore, along with a small mustache going around the little mouse's front lip.

"How inconsiderate!" Kid muttered, getting down from the chair.

"Very inconsiderate." Hattori took up the mouse and put it in one of the larger teapots.

"What very bad company you keep. Has anyone ever told you how rude you are?" Kid straightened his clothes out, looking fearfully towards the pot.

"Now don't say that! No, no one would be that obvious. I mean, ya don't just go 'round tellin' other people that they're rude."

"Of course not. That would be very rude of me, indeed," Kid agreed, sitting down in the chair and putting his legs up on the table. "I was asking if someone else had."

"But if someone else had done it, why bring it up again?"

"Good point, Good point." Kid agreed.

"I think I've had enough of this," Saguru muttered as quietly as he could to Conan. The small boy nodded, his own eyes pleading.

"Now, what was this about that missing person?"

"Not a person," Hattori corrected him. "A rabbit-eared girl."

"Oh right, so sorry. A rabbit-eared girl. You lost her?"

"How very sad."

"Very sad."

"_Very sad_" Saguru heard the mouse add from his home inside the pot

"What should we do?" Kid looked over to Hattori for the answer. "We should really help them."

"Yes, quite right. That'd be the right thing ta do."

"Really," Saguru put his hand up. "If you haven't seen her, we'll find her on our own."

Then the gate creaked open and the very girl they were looking for walked in. Her dull eyes stared at them all before she turned around and left. "I'll come back later."

"Rabbit-eared girl!" Both Hattori and Kid cried at the same time, running after her. Saguru watched as they were within feet of her and she turned around, giving them both a look that could have killed off the dinosaurs.

Kid and Hattori quickly backed off, running past the table and continuing into the house. Kid tipped his hat at them before his left. "You're on your own!"

Saguru shook his head, running after the girl. Conan was already ahead of him, wasting no time in the pursuit.

The woods grew darker- that or something actually made sense here and the sun was getting ready to set. Conan came to a stop at a road that led in seven different directions. He sighed, looking up at Saguru. "I just want to go back home. This is... this is crazy!" The boy shouted at him.

Saguru had to agree, but what was there to do? They were already following their only lead back to where they had come from. He looked down at the desperate boy and felt his own need for sanity return. Yes, they had to get back, and soon.

There were no tracks to follow, so Saguru turned to the road that had lead them where they were. "Let's go back there. Forget about the girl. She's not really the friend you thought she was anyway. Everything is different here. My watch doesn't mean enough to me to keep putting us through this." He started back the way they had come, Conan following in silence.

Saguru was sure this was the path they had taken but the trees were different and, as they passed a pond, the noises of random musical instruments hit his ears. Maybe he just hadn't noticed it the first time, or maybe he was just getting them more lost.

The first hour he thought that maybe he'd been mistaken about the way they had come. If anything, though, he'd been keeping track of what paths they had taken. It had been the only thing that he'd been able to hold onto. And now even that had left him. The trees around them were growing darker and darker, strange creatures walking across their path or flying over it, until finally he gave up.

"I'm sorry." He leaned against a tree, letting himself fall to the floor and all the anxieties of the day leave him. He was tired. Tired of walking, tired of being afraid, and tired of all this strangeness. "I thought..."

"I know." Conan sat near him, the small boy looking up at him through dark bangs. "I thought we were going the right way too. If I hadn't followed her, none of this would have happened."

"I can't blame you for that when my own reasons are so much more selfish." Saguru brought one of his knees up and rested his arm on it, fingers grabbing at nothing. "All I wanted was my watch back."

"At this point," Conan leaned against him, his eyes closing. "I don't think I've ever wanted anything more than for everything to go back to normal."

"Oh! But nothing's ever normal here."

Saguru jumped back, failing to get to his feet and tripping over himself as Kuroba's cat version stared down at them from the tree he'd been leaning against.

"And what do you want? To give us more riddles?"

"Have I lied to you yet?" Kuroba's grin seemed to glowing in the darkness like a crescent moon. "I told you where you could find you're rabbit-eared friend, did I not?"

"Fine then." Conan stood up, having been more frightened of Saguru suddenly moving than the ambient voice. "How do we get back to where we came from?"

"Turn around." Kuroba laughed, watching them in amusement.

"Enough games. How do we get back to our reality?"

"_You're _reality? Nothing is yours here. This is all the Queen's, and if she ever heard you say it was _yours..._" Kuroba laughed some more, rolling onto his back.

"Queen? This crazy world has royalty now?" Saguru asked.

"OOOHHHH! You've never met the Queen! She'd LOVE to meet you." Kuroba's tail swished playfully behind his back, his ears twitching towards sounds that they couldn't hear. "But then again, you'll never meet her. Not going the way you are now. You'd be lucky if you wound up where you're not going, what with the funny way you go about it."

"Then how would _you_ get there?" Conan was doing a better job of talking to the feline teen than he was, so he let the younger boy take charge. Who better to understand the mind of those lacking in rationale than a child. Conan also seemed to have a way about him that let Saguru know that there was no 'top-dog' between them. They were equals and that didn't seem as bad as when the idea first had come to him.

"Who me ? Why, I'd go," with a flick of his tail, Kuroba flipped his back feet forward and landed in front of them, sitting on the ground and swishing his tail around, his head turned back at an angle so he could keep grinning at them, "the way I just came from."

As Kuroba started to disappear, so did the tree that he'd jumped off of, or at least, the middle part of it. When it was gone there was a hole large enough for him to walk through, sun shining in and temporarily blinding him.

Inside looked like a labyrinth made out of hedges. Saguru sighed.

"A queen, huh. I doubt she will be any more sane than the others we have met."

"Maybe, maybe not. If she's in charge, she has to have some sense of order. I don't see everyone here eating one another."

"Good point." Saguru went through the opening first, raising his hand to fight off the brightness. Conan followed, both of them making their way to the beginning of the hedge maze. After a few turns, they heard singing.

"When people go crazy, do they suddenly get the urge to develop their musical talents?" He raised an eyebrow at Conan. "Because this is the first I'm seeing of it."

Conan smiled though both of them were almost at their tolerance level for all of this.

The voices became clearer as they passed a particular hedge, this one having an opening that led into a small area housing rose bushes. Except they weren't bushes. They were trees.

That, and all the little girl's running around them had the same face and same short cut hair with the same headband holding it back. All of them were wearing white pullovers with card numbers and characters on them. The other half of the small people running around... almost looked like goblins. They had long noses and, where the little girls had red card suits, they had black. There were two of these goblin creatures and two little girls that were separated, taking a paintbrush and trying to get the white roses on the flowering tree to turn red. Somehow or another, they'd already succeeded in dying a few of the trees.

"Hello?" He poked his head in to try and get directions. No sooner than he had done so than there was a trumpet sounding from somewhere and the girls and goblins froze, quickly turning to him, one of them shoving a paintbrush in his hand and another shoving a can of paint at Conan.

All four of them bowed to the opening where he and Conan were standing. He had enough sense in him to back up when Conan did, though he barely had time to bow before dozens and dozens of identical girls and goblins, all with different numbers, came upon them.

"Well, what have we here?"

The girl with the rabbit ears was next to him, walking past with all the dignity of someone of higher standing. Those with card labels all parted before her, the very hedges being pushed back to make room for them all. The girl stopped when she came to an opening in the bushes that was in the shape of a heart. She turned to them, spreading her hands out wide.

"OUR QUEEN!" She shouted, standing aside and bowing as someone very familiar came around the corner, her dark burgundy hair throwing off all shades of violet. "THE QUEEN OF HEARTS!"

Someone came up from behind her, waving a hand at the rabbit-girl. For a moment, he thought it was Kuroba again, but this teen gave off a whole different vibe than the magician, hair styled and neat, wearing a decent looking outfit compared to what he'd seen this day. The rabbit girl rolled her eyes at him. "And the King" she announced in a much quieter voice.

"This had got to be some sort of dream." Conan was talking to himself, it seemed, but loud enough for him to hear. He looked over at the boy and saw how shaken up he was. "...it just has to."

"Know him?"

Conan's wide eyes turned to him before the boy was able to nod. "He's... Shinichi-niichan." The boy swallowed as if saying the teen's name was difficult. "I don't know the girl."

"Koizumi-kun. Koizumi Akako, though I doubt that they go by the same names we know them as. The only one who's reacted to any this entire day is Nakamori-keibu's mouse counterpart to Kid's name."

Conan nodded, seeming to get himself back together. "Right. This isn't real."

He couldn't understand what shook the boy up so much but he didn't have time to wonder. Suddenly there were feet in front of him and he raised his head as slowly as he could. Akako was standing over him, dressed in a red dress, a black checkerboard pattern fading out of flared sleeves and the long skit of it.

"And just who are you?" He watched as her eye traveled to the flowers and the very incriminating evidence in his hand. Saguru quickly dropped the paintbrush, afraid of what might come from someone who actually held power in this place.

"It was-"

"DON'T SPEAK UNLESS YOU ARE SPOKEN TO!"

He withered under her. Akako was someone to be feared, whether or not he was in school. He'd seen firsthand what she could do when she was mad. It had taken him weeks before he was able come back to class, seeing as his clothes would suddenly shift to a vivid pink the minute she stepped on school grounds. He wasn't sure how she had done it, but he wasn't up to the task of asking her once he was able to resume his classes.

He felt her fingers under his chin, her nails gently scarping his neck as she lifted up his chin so that she could look at him. "My, you're a pretty one. And just what were you doing?" Her grip tightened and he felt her nails dig hard into his skin, enough to make him wince.

"Nothing. I swear we weren't doing anything. We only just arrived here. To speak with you."

"And what do you want with me?" Koizumi's eyes, a ruby red if he ever saw them, bore into him to search out the lies. They were innocent, so his fear started to die away.

"We need to find a way back to our home."

Her fingers released his face, only for her to slap him, keeping her fingers bent so she took a good deal of skin with it. "NOTHING IS YOURS HERE! EVERYTHING YOU SEE IS MINE! YOU ARE MINE!"

"You-!"

He reached over and grabbed Conan before the boy could act. Now was not the time to be speaking up. They were somewhere where rules and morals didn't apply any longer.

Akako grinned down at the both of them, her eyes seeing nothing but Conan's for a moment, the young boy staring back defiantly.

Then she turned to face him again, running a hand down his cheek and making his breath catch. "Now see what you've made me do? You've made me mad. I'm not a very nice person when I'm mad..." Her smile never left her face, so it was hard for him to tell if she was being serious.

"I HATE white!" Koizumi's fixation with the color red wasn't something unknown to him, though it was funny to see that there were some similarities between the people he was familiar with and the people here. His female classmates all too accurate look-a-like turned back to the King, who Conan was claiming was Kudo Shinichi. Kudo turned to her with a bow

"Yes?"

"Find out who did it and kill them! I want to hold their hearts in the palm of my hand." And with every syllable that she spoke, Saguru could hear the hunger for her commands to be handed down.

Kudo nodded, speaking to several of the card servants, three of them rushing off to go do the bidding of their king and queen.

"How about we clear the air. Something we can all enjoy... hm. How good are the both of you at soccer? Let's play!" She clapped her hands together before waiting for an answer. The small folk around them quickly dispersed, one of the goblins bringing an armadillo that quickly rolled itself into a tighter ball than he'd ever seen a real armadillo do.

Several of the goblins and girls erected nets at opposite corners of the field, one behind them and another behind Koizumi and Kudo.

"I don't play soccer," he whispered down to Conan, the boy looking just as worried as he was."

"I'm just a kid. There's no way I can keep up with you guys."

He realized it was true. Even if he didn't have the soccer skills, he was going to be a faster runner than Conan and able to travel with the ball further. Even worse, Conan was very low to the ground and if someone kicked the ball, Conan would have to make sure he was nowhere near them or risk getting hit in the face.

"Tsh. They're obviously doing this on purpose. What are we supposed to do?"

"Play along," Conan exhaled, preparing himself. "We already know they're going to win. Let's let them. Maybe afterwards we can find a way to get out of here."

Saguru nodded, watching as Kudo came up to the middle of the field. "So, who's you're forward?"

He looked back at Conan. There was no way the boy could play goalie, but he couldn't take on Kudo either. In the end, Saguru would have to play both positions. Conan noticed this too and stepped back. "I can try to help when I find an opening."

He nodded back at the boy, coming to stand in front of Kudo. The teen in front of him smiled. It wasn't the same manic grin everyone else had, but he wasn't afraid either. It was like he was okay with everything that went on around him, just the way it was. With Akako's superiority complex, he wasn't surprised that the other teen was so complacent.

"Ready?" Kudo asked him, preparing himself for the kickoff. Saguru didn't even want to try. He had to guess the armadillo's shell was hard, and he didn't want to hurt himself or the animal in the process.

The rabbit girl was on the sidelines, watching. She took a recorder to her mouth and blew.

Kudo was fast, faster than Saguru had thought possible, even if he had been planning a way to outmaneuver him. The teen king quickly had possession of the ball... armadillo, and was going towards the goal. Conan was there, with a very deer-in-the-headlights stare, right in his path.

Kudo swerved before he got close, clearing the boy and scoring a goal. The rabbit girl blew the recorder again to signify the point.

Saguru looked back at Conan and the goal. He had thought this was going to be hard, not impossible.

"Hey," Kudo tapped him on the shoulder in passing. He didn't mean to shy away from him, but most things here that had physical contact with him, did so for their own purposes. Kudo didn't seem to take offense from it. "I'm not one to take candy from a baby. You're up. Try and get one passed me." He winked before walking off towards his own goal, speaking with Koizumi when he reached it. The girl walked away, her red dress and magenta hair reflecting the sun as if it were meant to be accentuated by the light. Kudo sat down at the corner of the goal post, resting his hands behind his head and closing his eyes.

If the other teen had meant his comment to be reassuring, the Kudo's posture sure told him that he wasn't taking him seriously. Koizumi came up to him, ready to take him on. The recorder was blown.

On the first few, he was afraid that taking the ball from her would have consequences. After that fear started to fade when Conan managed to get the ball and pass it to him, he started getting closer to their goal. He made sure to slow down enough that Akako could catch up or Kudo could get off the ground and stop him. They weren't supposed to win, after all, and one point might be enough to get Koizumi angry enough to do something terrible.

He was panting and completely out of breath as Koizumi took the ball from him and started heading towards the goal.

"You really suck, you know that?"

The voice came from next to him and he turned to see Kuroba sprawled out on the grass, stretching out under the sun. "We could make this game more fun, if you wanted."

"No thank you. We're going to finish this, then we are going to go back home."

"But what fun would that be?" Kuroba laughed before vanishing and Saguru had that sinking feeling in his stomach that things were about to get much worse.

It came true very shortly afterwards. Conan made a pass to try and stop her, just to steal the ball like he'd done several times already. He never got enough speed to make it far enough away to do anything with it. Just as he took the ball, Saguru watched as Kaito's face- most of his body still in a place somewhere else- reached out one of his stripped hand and grabbed Akako's ankle. She fell on the ground. Hard.

And to everyone there it looked like Conan had just tripped her.

"Why..."

Everyone was quiet as Akako got up, Conan trying to step away from her without full-out running. "WHY YOU? KILL HIM! KILL HIM RIGHT NOW! OUT WITH THEIR HEARTS!"

Oh no. He ran over to the boy, snatching him up before any of the card minions could catch hold of him. There was nowhere to run to, so he crouched over the boy, making sure that no one touched him.

...

"What have I told you?"

The words were loud enough to reach him, and he slowly rose his head, seeing that they were both surrounded- Koizumi in front of him, looking like she was about to give him what for. The only thing that could have stopped her was Kudo's hand on her shoulder. "We need laws here. If everything were chaos, I don't think you'd like to rule over a crowd of mindless apes. At least give them a trial."

Akako seethed under the other teen's touch. Kudo let go, looking like she got to him. Her eyes continued to burn the teen king until he had to turn away. Then she was looking down at him.

"Fine. You may have you're trial, but so help me, I will see your blood run." She turned on her heels, walking through the heart-shaped hedge.

He sighed, relaxing his hold on Conan. The boy was safe for now. Without his glasses, the face that was staring back at him looked very much like Kudo's. He never saw the teen to compare the before now. There were a lot of things in the boy that he saw in the other. Maybe they were related. It would explain a few things.

"What are we going to do?" Conan turned to him, his eyes worried. "We can't escape now."

"Face trial, I guess. There's nothing else to do." They both looked around, Kudo still a few feet in front of them and all around were hoards of the goblin creatures and the same little girl. It was sad for him to be so scared of a child, but when the same face of said child showed up on dozens of others to oppose him- yes, he would at least admit it in his mind, they scared him.

Saguru got up, helping Conan to his feet. Kudo started back at them, leading the way to wherever it was they were to be taken. The girl with the rabbit ears followed behind as half the hoard went ahead of them and half followed behind.

They were led to a large courtroom and forced to a wooden podium while Kudo took his seat on a higher stage. Akako was in the middle, behind a wooden balcony that stood far above the court. There were a dozen animals that the rabbit girl introduced as the jury.

Then the trial started.

"Guilty" Koizumi waved her hand at them in dismissal. "There. That was fun."

He was sure Conan shared the same devastated look that he had. That couldn't be it… could it?

Kudo rolled his eyes at her. "That's not how a trial works. We have to let them defend themselves first."

"Fine, call the first witness."

Saguru didn't even know they had witnesses. Who else here knew them?

He was sure he made some type of whimper-like noise when he saw Hattori, in all his rabbitness, brought in by a young girl and a goblin. The Osakan lounged against the stand instead of sitting at it. Koizumi looked down at him with fire in her eyes.

"What can you say about this incident?"

"Nothin' at all!"

"Amazing!"

The jury seemed just as excited by Hattori's answer as Koizumi was. She leaned on her elbow and started down at him. "Now, you may step down."

Hattori took a step down but didn't leave the area.

"NEXT WITNESS!" Koizumi shouted, most likely deafening Hattori. Then Saguru watched as they brought in the pot that the Nakamori-mouse had been put in.

"Is this really-"

Conan shushed him before he could say more when he realized Koizumi was watching them and trying to speak herself. Her eyes lowered to the kettle.

"And you? What have you to say?" Koizumi asked the pot. Nakamori-mouse stuck his head out of the top, looking half drunk and his speech slurred. "I'm a-gonna ca-catch you, KID!"

"ANOTHER AMAZING FIND!"

And the sad thing was, Koizumi sounded like she meant it. The jury, again, agreed with her. His hopes for this ending nicely slipped away at that point.

And then, to add insult to injury, they brought Kid in.

"Really? This is really happening. I'm getting defended by the thief?"

Conan let out a laugh at that, though he quickly fell back into the same wary desperation they both were carrying. When Kid got to the stand, he bowed, flourishing his cape behind him.

"You know the defendant?"

"Why, yes I do, indeed. We were celebrating their unbirthday today, along with my own."

Kudo smiled at that and then, before he knew was going on, they all were singing again.

Saguru ran a hand down his face, pretending he wasn't seeing this.

"Oh no."

Conan's voice got his attention.

While the group of misfits they'd come to great throughout the day were continuing their song and dance from earlier, someone he'd been hoping would leave them alone showed up.

Kuroba's cat form was mucking around by the platform Koizumi was on, nails somehow digging in so he was hanging directly underneath her. Kid was still in the witness box, singing along with the rest of them, but Saguru couldn't move about freely so he had to take up the chance before anything worse could happen.

"Kid, can you-"

"KID!"

Saguru could have slapped himself for how stupid that was. Nakamori-mouse quickly jumped out of the pot, chasing after Kid. Kid yelped, hopping off the stand and higher, onto Koizumi's. Saguru briefly heard Kuroba's laughter as he faded away from where he had been hanging. Seconds later there was a lot of crashing as the very platform itself fell apart, Kid and Koizumi crashing down to the floor. Kid was able to brace himself but Koizumi didn't have the same dexterity, falling into a pile of debris as she scrambled to her feet to help catch the mouse.

"Somethin' ta drink! He needs somethin' ta drink!" Hattori came running in, only adding more hysteria to the chase. Koizumi was shoved about before getter buried under the tapestry that had hung below the balcony. The mouse ran under there with her and Kudo, in an attempt to be useful, slammed the pot down.

Unfortunately it was on Koizumi and not the mouse. Kudo quickly passed all that remained of the pot, its broken handled, to Hattori. Hattori's eyes widened, his ears sticking up, and he shoved it at Kid. Kid almost dropped it, juggling it around a few times to get a good grip on it...

-before shoving it right into his hands just as Koizumi emerged from the sheet.

"Time to run."

Conan took off faster than he had ever seen a child run. Even during the soccer game, his speed wasn't even half of what it was now. Saguru turned in time with Koizumi shout of, "KILL THEM! KILL THEM BOTH!" His pace grew faster as he heard the hoard all pursuing the two of them. They had to brush through a few rows of guards but that was easy with the adrenaline. Conan was always a few steps ahead, giving Saguru the incentive to speed things up and not be afraid of losing him.

Kudo's voice adding in with Koizumi's, giving the order for their death, gave him even more reason to run.

The maze was nothing as they both sped through it, each praying that they hadn't taken a dead end. Any wrong turn at this point and there was no going back.

This wasn't a girl with rabbit ears, putting up a good chase, a caterpillar-man blowing smoke at them, a thief and detective having a party for no reason other than to have one, or a cat-teen with a bad sense of humor playing a joke. These people were really going to kill them if they were caught.

Everything seemed to pass by in a blur. He saw the garden one minute, the forest the next, all the trees throwing off different colors. Then he passed the house Kid and Hattori had been at, watching something that looked a lot like the Mouri-butterfly zoom in and out of his vision, before finally arriving at the sea, a dark shadow passing over them that may have been Watson again.

Instead of feeling his feet come into contact with the sand, the world seemed to get darker. The voices chasing them didn't fade, but the void around them grew until everything was bathed in the same dark-red light as when they had come.

Conan panted, looking fearfully over his shoulder. "They're still coming. How do we get out?"

"I don't know!" Saguru shook his head. Even the keyhole they had come in was gone. "There's nowhere to go!"

"And... where exactly muuuusssssssst you go?" The albino snake returned out of the shadows, eyeing them in amusement. "After all. You're not really here, so how can you leave a place that you've never really been to?"

The snake started to fade back into the void, letting out a hissing laugh.

"What does that mean?"

The voices grew louder in his ears as the darkness took over his vision. He couldn't see Conan anymore. That worried him but he had too much worry for himself at the moment to care about the fate of the boy. He couldn't be far.

The whole world seemed to be spinning- to be trembling in on itself. He couldn't seem to get his feet to steady. His arms fell out to catch him-

And then he jumped to his feet, hearing something behind him fall.

"OW! Haku-baka! Watch it!"

Saguru trembled where his hands were lying on his desk. There was no one around him but Aoko. She was standing at his side and looking very worried.

"Are you alright, Hakuba-kun? You slept through all of last period. We tried to wake you up, but you wouldn't get up."

"Ah." He put his hand to his forehead to make sure that he was really here. Was it really all a dream? It felt so... real.

"And don't do that! That really hurt you know!" He turned and watched Kuroba get up from the floor, a small trail of blood running down the magician's lip. Kuroba wiped it away, looking at him with the same worry as Aoko playing about his eyes.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry. It was just a nightmare."

"Well, I know the cure for any bad dream!" Aoko grabbed on his wrist and dragged him out the door. He caught a glance of Kuroba smiling at him as he trailed after. "Let's go get some ice cream!"

...

...

A few miles away, Conan shot up from his desk, knocking his chair aside on accident.

"Conan-kun, are you alright?" Ayumi was at his side, placing her hand over his. "Did you have a bad dream? You fell asleep. The teacher looked really mad."

"I've never known you to sleep in class." Haibara turned to him, eyes glinting like cold steel. "But you have impeccable timing."

"Times up!" He heard the teacher shout, ignoring his disturbance. "Pass in your tests now!"

_He'd really just fallen asleep during final exams?_

"Maybe next time you'll think twice about staying up all night reading."

_Yeah, _he agreed to himself. No more fantasies for the next... lifetime to come.

"Oh, Edogawa-kun. One more thing." Haibara turned, grabbing something out of her book bag and dangling it in the air. "You've been here longer than I have. I don't have any idea how it got in my bag. Do you know whose this is?"

Conan took it with numb fingers, nodding to her.

"You'll return it for me then? I'm late. I have to get to Hakase before he starts making dinner."

"Yeah... I'll..." he didn't finish his sentence standing and looking down at something that couldn't be...

This- this wasn't possible.

The golden pocket watch now sitting on his desk spoke differently.

...

...

"Hey Hakuba-kun," Aoko asked in concern as they were at the ice cream parlor, Kuroba across from him and giving him the strangest looks for some time now. "How did you get those scratches on your face?"

CHARACTERS:

Alice: Conan and Hakuba

White Rabbit: Haibara Ai

Dodo Bird: Watson

Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dum: Genta and Mitsuhiko

The Caterpillar: Kogoro Mouri

The Cheshire Cat: Kuroba Kaito

The Mad Hatter: KID

The March Hare: Hattori Heiji

The Dormouse: Nakamori Ginzo

Card Servants: Ayumi and ... ?

The Queen: Koizumi Akako

The King: Kudo Shinichi


End file.
